Castlevania

Joshua Morse’s Castlevania remix albums VLAD and VLAD II contain some of my perpetual favorite EDM tracks, and they’re extra fitting around this spoOoOoky season. He’s made a tradition of releasing them just in time for Halloween only this year we’re getting a single instead of a 4-track EP.

“Demon Seed” from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse was always a funky jam and Morse gives it his danceable electronic update here. Samples, breaks, and drops put a fun spin on the theme while the bumpin’ beat keep it all in step. Take a listen above and grab the track for pay-what-you-want over on Joshua Morse’s Bandcamp page.

On June 30, 2017, Lakeshore Records announced they were taking pre-orders for the upcoming soundtrack to Netflix’s Castlevania. Canadian composer Trevor Morris has written the score and you may recognize his name as he composed the music for Dragon Age: Inquisition, and several notable TV series including The Tudors, The Borgias (whose theme song won an Emmy Award), The Pillars of the Earth and Vikings.

I hadn’t realized that Bloody Disgusting had previewed the series Main Title Theme on June 23, 2017, but in case you missed their article you can check it out here. The music features a wonderful blend of strings, brass, solid percussion and a hint of chorals. What has me very excited about this is that Trevor Morris has mastered composing for historical period pieces which I think is a perfect fit for the world of Castlevania.

The album is available for pre-order digitally on Amazon, iTunes and Apple music here. The soundtrack will be released on CD on August 4, 2017, and was released digitally on July 7, 2017.

Lakeshore Records also revealed the album’s tracklist which you can view by clicking further into this article as to avoid any spoilers. Are you excited for this Netflix Original Series?

Mondo has announced that they will be making available the fourth installment of their Castlevania vinyl series with the appropriate release of Super Castlevania IV.

Hi all – this week, in anticipation of the newly announced Netflix Original Series, we will be releasing the next chapter in our ongoing CASTLEVANIA soundtrack series! It’s one of our favorites of the series, and quite possibly one of our favorite video game soundtrack of all time: the Super Nintendo classic SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV.

Unlike the previous iterations of Castlevania music on the NES games, the soundtrack for Super Castlevania IV was able to utilize synthesized instrumentation to achieve a darker and more atmospheric soundtrack, as opposed to the punchier sounds of the NES sound chip. Released in 1991 and one of the first games released shortly after the launch of the SNES, Super Castlevania IV and it’s soundtrack are considered to be some of the franchise’s best work.

Video credited to scigamerfan07

Looking at this pre-release, I wish I could say I was excited for this album, but I’m really not. While I’ve been critical of Mondo’s artistic choices for the Castlevania albums in the past (I thought the Dracula’s Curse front cover was ridiculously hipster and trying too hard to be artsy rather than recognizable), this particular album art comes off looking lazy. For an officially-released and licensed video game soundtrack album, the artwork looks dull and cartoonish and does not at all mimic the dynamic design of the original game box art. The back cover might be a bit more detailed, but it doesn’t make up for the poor design choice of the front. It’s simply an opinion since the game features my favorite soundtrack of the whole franchise and this is an design critique, but I believe the art choice fails to do credit to the legacy that is Super Castlevania IV.

It also makes me curious that the composers for Super Castlevania IV, Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudo (under pseudonyms Sotaro Tojima and Masanori Oodachi), are not credited properly. All of the Mondo albums simply list Konami Kukeiha Club with the music credits, which was Konami’s catch-all group listing for their sound team used at the time of SCV4 and other Konami games so that their musicians wouldn’t be poached by other game companies. However composer credits are widely available these days, even on Wikipedia, so why not give credit where it’s due? One wonders if this is dictation from Konami as part of the licensing agreement, or perhaps something else. Hopefully it holds no baring on the quality of the music itself, which has been (appropriately) criticized in the past.

Mondo will be releasing its Super Castlevania IV June 21st at noon (CST) on 2x 180 Gram Bronze and Gold Split Vinyl (Limited to 1,000 Copies) – or – 2x 180 Gram Silver with Red Splatter for $30. They’re also have copies of the Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse vinyl back in stock. Mondo boasts one more installment in their Castlevania line with Symphony of the Night to be likely announced later this year.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Shiryu Music has composed an album of retro-mixed chiptune versions of many classic tunes of the SotN soundtrack.

“Castlevania: Chiptunes of the Night” is my long and delayed tribute to Michiru Yamane’s incredible soundtrack. You might have found me teasing this release in the past years with me chiptune demakes/remixes/covers from such timeless classic songs as “Wood Carving Partita” or “The Tower of Mist”. But this time I went for the complete soundtrack, or at least the tracks that I could get my hand on sheet music and/or MIDI files. – Shiryu

Of the 32-track album, “Disc 1” features retro-makes of several tunes from Symphony of the Night done with a NES sound library, while “Disc 2” does the same track up with SNES sound fonts, meant to give tribute to the oldschool sounds of the earlier Castlevania games to this, the game that helped kick off a new genre of “Metroidvania” games.

Some tracks do a good job of down-mixing the iconic tunes of SotN, while others leave a bit to be desired. (The NES version of “Tragic Prince” starts off great but then gets a bit grating on the ears, in my opinion.) However it’s a solid effort and a commendable tribute to composer Michiru Yamane’s most recognized and revered soundtrack.

We have a special team-up between OSV and VGMO for the return of the podcast! (One that will likely continue moving forward.) To celebrate the Halloween season, I talk with their Oliver Jia and go into a complete nerd-out about all things Castlevania!

This past Monday was the 30th anniversary of Castlevania, a franchise that has been a cornerstone of video gaming for so many of us since our childhoods. On September 26th, 1986, Akumajo Dracula, or Demon Castle Dracula as it translates, was released for the Famicom Disk System in Japan, and the legendary feud between the Belmont clan and Count Dracula was born.

For me, Castlevania was not only an indulgence of my childhood love of vampire stories and movie monsters, but the music of the series became the baseline for which I rated so many game soundtracks through my life. Granted, I loved my Sonic the Hedgehog and Golden Axe as a Genesis kid, but the soundtracks from the Castlevania series stuck with me, and impacted a lot of how I perceived game music from childhood to adult hood. If I played it at 8 or 28, the series soundtracks are hands down my favorite of any game franchise.

Thus, in a bit of self-indulgence and as a tribute to 30 years of whip-cracking, wall meat-finding, vampire-slaying goodness, I’ve made a list of my favorite music from each game in Castlevania‘s lifetime; from the very first game all the way through to Lords of Shadow. (I’m omitting the Pachislot games as they’re basically all re-used music and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate since I never played it) Granted, OSV has covered the music of Castlevaniaseveraltimesbefore, but consider this a brief perusing through of the history of the franchise’s music in all its iterations.

MONDO has finally fully released their Castlevania Original Game Soundtrack LP that we’ve covered a few times here on OSV. The grey with black & white splatter 10′ version is currently on sale for $20.00 on the MONDO website.

With this official release of the first game’s soundtrack comes an additional teaser of things to come, via the MONDO Twitter account.

It looks and sounds like we may be seeing a quick announcement of a Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest LP in the near future as well. The release of subsequent Castlevania soundtracks to vinyl was talked about in the initial announcement of the first game’s release, though to have such a quick turnaround between releases is a pleasant surprise. Certainly, if MONDO has been working on multiple Castlevania soundtrack releases at once and we see the likes of not only Simon’s Quest, but possibly even Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse and Super Castlevania IV by the end of the year (or close to it), then they’ll definitely have endeared themselves to the fandom.

We’ll be sure to keep fixated on future CV release news like Peeping Eye on a Belmont.

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